Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam (To the Greater Glory of God)
From: Daniel 6:12-28
Daniel Sentenced to be Put in the Lions’ Den (Continuation)
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([11] Then these men came by agreement (into the upper chamber of Daniel's house) and found Daniel making petition and supplication before his God.) [12] Then they came near and said before the king, concerning the interdict, “0 king! Did you not sign an interdict, that any man who makes petition to any god or man within thirty days except to you, 0 king, shall be cast into the den of lions?” The king answered, “The thing stands fast, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be revoked.” [13] Then they answered before the king, “That Daniel, who is one of the exiles from Judah, pays no heed to you, 0 king, or the interdict you have signed, but makes his petition three times a day.”
[14] Then the king, when he heard these words, was much distressed, and set his mind to deliver Daniel; and he labored till the sun went down to rescue him. [15] Then these men came by agreement to the king, and said to the king, “Know, 0 king, that it is a law of the Medes and Persians that no interdict or ordinance which the king establishes can be changed.”
[16] Then the king commanded, and Daniel was brought and cast into the den of lions. The king said to Daniel, “May your God, whom you serve continually, deliver you!” [17] And a stone was brought and laid upon the mouth of the den, and the king sealed it with his own signet and with the signet of his lords, that nothing might be changed concerning Daniel. [18] Then the king went to his palace, and spent the night fasting; no diversions were brought to him, and sleep fled from him.
Daniel’s Miraculous Escape
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[19] Then, at break of day, the king arose and went in haste to the den of lions. [20] When he came near to the den where Daniel was, he cried out in a tone of anguish and said to Daniel, “0 Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you serve continually, been able to deliver you from the lions?” [21] Then Daniel said to the king, “0 king, live for ever! [22] My God sent his angel and shut the lions’ mouths, and they have not hurt me, because I was found blameless before him, and also before you, 0 king, I have done no wrong.” [23] Then the king was exceedingly glad, and commanded that Daniel be taken up out of the den. So Daniel was taken up out of the den, and no kind of hurt was found upon him, because he had trusted in his God.
The King’s Profession of Faith
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[24] And the king commanded, and those men who had accused Daniel were brought and cast into the den of lions--they, their children, and their wives and before they reached the bottom of the den the lions overpowered them and broke all their bones in pieces.
[25] Then King Darius wrote to all the peoples, nations, and languages that dwell in all the earth: “Peace be multiplied to you. [26] I make a decree, that in all my royal dominion men tremble and fear before the God of Daniel, for he is the living God, enduring for ever his kingdom shall never be destroyed, and his dominion shall be to the end. [27] He delivers and rescues, he works signs and wonders in heaven and on earth, he who has saved Daniel from the power of the lions.” ([28] So this Daniel prospered during the reign of Darius and the reign of Cyrus the Persian.)
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Commentary:
6:1-28. This passage, which is similar in parts to chapter 3, begins by showing how difficult it was for the Jews to stay true to their religion in the midst of a pagan society (vv. 1-18); then we see how God comes to their rescue (vv. 19-24); finally, the pagan king acknowledges the God of Israel (vv. 25-28). As in chapter 5, Daniel is center-stage; in fact, his companions are not even mentioned. The episode has no particular connection with the previous ones; in fact, it seems to be a unit in its own right; it rounds off the part of the book dealing with Daniel at the court of Babylon. The fact that the story involves Darius the Mede, a king unknown to historical scholarship (see pp. 794f, above), reinforces the impression that this is a moral tale designed to get across the message that God helps those who strive to obey the precepts of the Jewish religion.
6:1-18. Daniel seems to be very much part of the social and political world of Babylon; thanks to his skill and loyalty, he is second only to the king. The plot against him may have been hatched out of jealousy, but the fact that he was an foreigner and a Jew probably did not help. His enemies set a sort of legal trap for Daniel. The king in his vanity issues a decree which, for a period of thirty days, makes him the only god there is. It is a decree that even he cannot revoke--much as he would wish to do so, in order to liberate Daniel from its penalty. Here Daniel the Jew is not being obliged to do something against his religion: he is being required to refrain from doing something that his religion enjoins--to pray to God facing towards Jerusalem (cf. 1 Kings 8:48). Daniel’s opponents have managed to manipulate the king and change the law, in such a way that they can accuse Daniel of breaking the law for religious reasons; he cannot be faulted on any other score.
When Daniel learned about the interdict, he did not change his standard pattern of prayer (v. 11); there is a lesson here for Christians, as the Fathers point out. Origen, for example, says: “The commandment to "pray without ceasing" (cf. Lk18:1) can be understood and fulfilled only if we believe that the whole of man’s life is a single, unbroken prayer. One part of this long prayer of life is what we call prayer, and we should pray no less than three times a day, as is made clear in the book of Daniel, who prayed three times a day even in the midst of great dangers” ("De Oratione", 12, 2).
6:19-24. Through divine intervention (once again by means of an angel: cf. 3:26), no harm comes to Daniel from the lions. It is as if Daniel is innocent in the sight of God--a point not lost on the king (v. 22) either; in fact, it spurs him to take control of the situation, assert his rights, and see that justice is done (vv. 23-24). Daniel’s fidelity to his religion, and the fact that God protected him in his ordeal, expose the perversity of the king’s edict, and cause the king to right the wrong he has done. The sacred writer points out why God intervened miraculously--because Daniel “trusted in his God” (v. 23). Daniel’s rivals were punished in line with the customs of the time, that is, they were punished very severely.
St Augustine comments that the lions refrained from harming Daniel because he was faithful to God: “Submit to the one who has power over you, and you will be raised above those who once held you in thrall. In committing sin, man places above himself what should always be beneath him; he submits to things that are less than him. [...] Acknowledge the one who has power over you, so that the things that are below you will see where you stand above them. For when Daniel acknowledged the power of the Lord God, the lions saw the superiority of Daniel over them and did not touch him” ("In Epistolam Ioannis", 8).
6:25-28: The king readily issues a decree that goes against his earlier one (cf. 6:9); the tenor of it is like that issued by Nebuchadnezzar in 4:1-3. So, both the Babylonian king and Darius the Mede acknowledged the God of the Jews as the one true God whose kingdom lasts forever; and they reached that point thanks to the wisdom that God gave the Jews (particularly Daniel) and to the exemplary fidelity of the Jews to their religion in the midst of trials.
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From: Sirach 50:22-24
Exhortation
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[22] And now bless the God of all,
who in every way does great things;
who exalts our days from birth,
and deals with us according to his mercy.
[23] May he give us gladness of heart,
and grant that peace may be in our days in Israel,
as in the days of old.
[24] May he entrust to us his mercy!
And let him deliver us in our days!
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Commentary:
50:22-29. The eulogy of Simon is followed by three short additional statements—an admonition to readers (vv. 22-24); a reproach to Israel’s two neighbors, the Philistines and the Samaritans (vv. 25-26), and whose tone is out of keeping with the context; and then the conclusion to the whole book (vv27-29). This conclusion is, in a way, a resume of the entire treatise (there have been similar passages elsewhere: cf. 1:1 and 18). It is a sort of signature, something not found elsewhere in the Old Testament; but we do find a similar note near the end of the Apocalypse of St John (Rev 22: 6-7). Given that vv. 27-29 are found both in the Greek and Latin manuscripts and in the Hebrew, although with minor variations, these verses are thought to be written by Ben Sirach himself and not by the Greek translator. But, because they are couched in the third person, they could be an annotation made by a Hebrew scribe before the book was translated into Greek. Anyway, they certainly manage to describe nicely what Ben Sirach has done in this book (v. 27; cf. 24:34) and what his purpose was in writing it—to help his reader become wise (vv. 28-29).
Greeting
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[3] Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Thanksgiving
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[4] I give thanks to God always for you because of the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus, [5] that in every way you were enriched in him with all speech and all knowledge [6] even as the testimony to Christ was confirmed among you--[7] so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ; [8] who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. [9] God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
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Commentary:
1-9. With slight variations almost all St Paul's letters begin in the same kind of way: there is a greeting (vv. 1-3), which carries the name of the writer, information on the addressee(s), and the conventional phrase; and an act of thanksgiving to God (vv. 4-9), in which the Apostle refers to the main qualities and endowments of the Christians to whom he is writing. By comparing his letters with other letters that have come down to us from the same period, it is quite apparent that St Paul usually begins his letters in the style of the time. yet he does not entirely follow this rigid pattern: he changes the usual opening--"Greeting!" (cf. Acts 15:23; 23:26)--to this more personal one, which has a pronounced Christian stamp: "Grace to you and peace." Also, the way in which he introduces himself and describes those he is addressing tells much more than a simple "Paul to the Corinthians: greeting!" Even his words of thanksgiving convey tenderness and warmth--and their tone is not merely human, for he attributes to God the virtues he praises in the faithful.
The Fathers of the Church have drawn attention to this characteristic of Paul's letters--the way he manages to convey a deep doctrinal message in a familiar style, nicely suited to whomever he happens to be addressing: "A doctor", St John Chrysostom explains, "does not treat the patient in the same way at the start of his illness as when he is recovering; nor does a teacher use the same method with children as with those who need more advanced tuition. That is how the Apostle acts: he writes as suits the needs and the times" ("Hom. On Rom", Prologue).
3. Peace of soul, that "serenity of mind, tranquillity of soul, simplicity of heart, bond of love, union of charity" of which St Augustine spoke ("De Verb. Dom. Serm.", 58), originates in the friendship with God which grace brings with it; it is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit (cf. Gal 5:22-23). This is the only true kind of peace: "There is no true peace, just as there is no true grace, other than the grace and peace which come from God," St John Chrysostom teaches, "Possess this divine peace and you will have nothing to fear, even if you be threatened by the direct danger, whether from men or even from the demons themselves; whereas see how everything is a cause of fear for the man who is at war with God through sin" ("Hom. on 1 Cor", 1, "ad loc".).
4-9. After the greeting, words of thanksgiving conclude the introduction to the letter, before St Paul begins the doctrinal part. He reminds the Corinthians that they owe their privileged position to God. They, like all Christians, received God's grace in Christ, and that grace has enriched them in every way, for it causes man to share in God's very nature (cf. 2 Pet 1:4), raising him to an entirely new level of existence. This transfiguration enables a person, even here, to know the perfections of God's inner life and to partake of that life--albeit in a limited, imperfect way--through the theological virtues of faith, hope and charity, which grace brings and which elevate the mind and will to know and love God, One and Three.
St Paul teaches the need to give thanks to God and he sets us an example in this regard. Obdurate sinners fail to acknowledge the benefits God gives them (cf. Rom 1:21), but Christians should always base their prayer on gratitude to God (cf. Phil 4:6). "Nothing charms God more than a heart that is grateful either on its own account or on account of others" (Chrysostom, "Hom. on 1 Cor", 2, "ad loc".).
5-6. The grace of God, mentioned in the previous verse, embraces gifts, including those to do with eloquence and knowledge. So richly does God endow the Christian that St Alphonsus exclaims: "Our wretchedness should not make us uneasy, for in Jesus crucified we shall find all richness and all grace (cf. 1 Cor 1:5, 7). The merits of Jesus Christ have enriched us with all the wealth of God and there is no grace we might desire that we cannot obtain by asking for it" ("The Love of God Reduced to Practice", chap. 3). The Fathers interpret these gifts as meaning that the Corinthians had such a good grasp of Christian teaching that they were able to express it clearly: "There are those who have the gift of knowledge but not that of speech; and there are others who have the gift of speech but not knowledge. The faithful in general, who are uneducated, know these truths, but they cannot clearly explain what they have in their soul. You on the other hand, St Paul says, are different; you know these truths and you can speak about them; you are rich in the gift of speech and in that of knowledge" (Chrysostom, "Hom. on 1 Cor", 2, "ad loc".).
8-9. "The day of our Lord': in St Paul's writings and in the New Testament generally, this refers to the day of the General Judgment when Christ will appear as Judge, clothed in glory (cf. 2 Cor 1:14; 1 Thess 5:2).
Christians actively hope that that Day will find them "blameless" (cf. Phil 1:10; 1 Thess 3:13; 5:23); the basis for this hope is God's faithfulness--an attitude frequently applied to him in the Old Testament (cf. Deut 7:9; Is 49:7) and in St Paul's letters (cf. 1 Cor 10:13; 2 Cor 1:18; 1 Thess 5:24; 2 Thess 3:3; Heb 10:23): the Covenant which God made with the chosen people was primarily a gift and a grace, but it also was a legal commitment. The Covenant was grounded on God's fidelity, which was not merely a matter of legal obligation: it involved faithful, constant love. The God's fidelity will finds its fullest expression in the Redemption brought about by Jesus Christ: "If, in fact, the reality of the Redemption," Pope John Paul II says, "in its human dimension, reveals the unheard-of greatness of man, "qui talem ac tantum meruit habere Redemptorem", at the same time "the divine dimension of the Redemption" enables us [...] to uncover the depth of that love which does not recoil before the extraordinary sacrifice of the Son, in order to satisfy the fidelity of the Creator and Father towards human beings, created in his image" ("Dives In Misericordia", 7).